When Charlie Eggleston's
stint as a U.S. Navy journalist ended in 1966, he had collected two bronze
stars for valor and other military awards for such efforts as climbing
down a helicopter hoist to rescue a U.S. Pilot in North Vietnam and serving
with a SVN junk-fleet patrol. Going home to Gouverneur, New York, didn't
hold the same appeal as working for UPI in Saigon, so he stayed on. He
was wounded twice in the 1968 Tet offensive. He died in Rocket Alley near
Saigon's Tan Son Nhut Airport, leaving his estate to Vietnamese orphans.

United Press International radio correspondent
Roger Norum was tape-recording live during street fighting in Saigon on
May 6,1968, when he witnessed the death of UPI photographer Charlie Eggleston,
who was shot by a Viet Cong sniper. Norum was with a group of South Vietnamese
and Korean soldiers who were confronting a platoon of Viet Cong guerrillas
who had infiltrated a densely-populated area on the outskirts of Saigon
near the airport and were now attacking from burning buildings. Norum then
spotted Eggleston. UPI's Dick Growald back at the agency's headquarters
in New York, later narrated the tape, which was broadcast the same day
as Eggleston's death.

ROGER NORUM: Charlie! (In the background
single-shot automatic-rifle fire gradually increases.) Trying to make it
across the road here. (Three more rounds are fired, the sound of trucks
and steady rifle fire can be heard in the background.) Don't you
duck, Charlie? The smoke from the heat and the fire is rather intense.
What do you make of all this, Charlie?

CHARLIE EGGLESTON: It's just about good
for a laugh.

ROGER NORUM: What do you think about that
convoy of trucks? Why were they going into this area where all this smoke
is coming from?

CHARLIE EGGLESTON: Oh, that's an ammo dump
over there in that area: that is the road to Cu Chi, and that was artillery
ammo and they are short of it in Cu Chi. I was there two days ago. They
said they were low on 155 (millimeter artillery) rounds.

ROGER NORUM: There is a bit more action
than I had bargained for. Miserably hot, and the flames and the fire from
the burning building is just adding to it...proceeding very, very cautiously
now...Is it all right, Charlie?...Charlie has just given me the OK, right
in the midst of a burning village area. Flames are all around, and the
smell is burned plastic. Looks like we are in the middle of a blacksmith
shop here.

NARRATOR: Here, off Plantation Road, in
this alley, in this garage and blacksmith shop, the firing picks up; war
seems dreadfully near.

(Very noisy bursts of automatic fire; close
by, the firm loud voice of a Vietnamese woman warns of Viet Cong "over
there". Grenade explosions, firing in both directions. Sound of the loading
of an automatic rifle.)

ROGER NORUM: Viet Cong are throwing rocket-propelled
grenades. Eight or nine of us in here. The heat is just dripping, just
dripping. Something is coming from behind us. Huh, that sound.....(Explosions,
noise of a plane buzzing overhead)

CHARLIE EGGLESTON: Do you have a match?
It's Marlboro country, huh?

ROGER NORUM: It's coming from behind us....some
over to the side. (Cracking explosions and single automatic rounds, very
noisy, very close.) Every time I hear a volley of gunfire--(Breaks off,
bullets sing past)--very close--was that a bullet ? That must have been
no more than a foot away. It's not funny !

NARRATOR: The Viet Cong are just behind
the alley, up there on the second floor, and they are cornered, and they
are shooting back, and we've got to keep low. The guerrillas are doing
all this to try to win publicity and hope that it will impress someone,
like the rest of the world. Captured Viet Cong documents proclaim that
the street fighting is necessary to back up the efforts of the North
Vietnamese diplomats meeting American negotiators in Paris. They talk in
Paris, but here....here a shot...(Sharp noise of a single round, very close,
is followed by a thumping sound. Charlie has crashed to the ground.)

ROGER NORUM: Oh no! Oh no! Charlie has
been shot! Oh my God, my God....Charlie has been killed! Oh my God,
blood is streaming out of his nose and mouth. He's got it right in his
head! Ooh Jesus! I saw him stand out in this alleyway...(Norum's
heavy breathing makes it impossible for him to continue speaking; the
NARRATOR takes over.)

NARRATOR: You hear the sound of the shock
of death; the blood of a friend is seen in the heat of a day of fighting
in the street of Saigon, in the battle of Saigon, in the war of Vietnam.